[P2P-F] Fwd: [NetworkedLabour] A major contribution to the dialectical-systemic analysis of transnational revolutions

[Michel Bauwens]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Orsan <orsan1234 at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 3:36 AM
Subject: [NetworkedLabour] A major contribution to the dialectical-systemic
analysis of transnational revolutions
To: "<networkedlabour at lists.contrast.org>" <
networkedlabour at lists.contrast.org>


Another must read from Kees van der Pijl:A theory of transnational
revolution: universal history according to Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy and its
implications
...

  Rosenstock's perspective can perhaps be best classified as neo- Hegelian,
and there are elements of teleology and a neglect of social structure and
productive forces which readers should be aware of. His aim, as stated at
the beginning of the book, is to transcend 'the purely theoretical
dialectic of the Marxists by a true dialectic of peoples and parts of the
world' (Rosenstock-Huessy, 1961:xii, quoted hereafter as RH). Marxism,
according to Rosenstock, tends to reflect the capitalist order in that it
ignores the organic side of society, and like capital itself, annihilates
social time by imposing an inexorable logic of equations (RH 484-5).

Certainly the dialectic of the productive forces and the relations of
production which Marxists self-confidently applied to explain the
progression from 1789 to 1917 and beyond, in the 1970s as in the 1930s
failed to take into account the clash between capitalist 'efficiency' and
the rhythms of organic social life (day and night, the seasons, childbirth
and parenthood, youth and old age) which Rosenstock considers the
fundamental contradiction and limit of a capitalist order (rather than
actual exploitation (RH 405, 474; cf. Polanyi, 1957)). The effects,
material and ideological, on societies radically exposed to this clash
accordingly have been underrated; but so was the degree to which
Soviet-type socialism represented an effort to catch up with the capitalist
west rather than establish a society beyond it. Since the poten- tial for a
resumption of capital's revolutionary dynamic was not recognized either (as
testified by terms such as 'state monopoly capi- talism' and 'late
capitalism' (cf. Funke, 1978)), the march of history was too easily taken
for granted.

What Rosenstock in his turn fails to acknowledge is that capital, too,
projects a spiritual totality, to which its 'subjects' orient their
particular expectations and actions. He therefore cannot account for the
power of capital to drive forward global unification through processes of
class formation on a world scale; instead, a bipolar state structure is
consid- ered the end state of world revolution. But, as we will argue
below, the teleology and finality of Rosenstock's theory can be transcended
precisely by reintroducing this dimension of capitalist globalization.

This article is built up as follows. First, we will present a short summary
of Rosenstock's theory of transnationally connected revolu- tions. Next, we
will argue that Rosenstock's theory is an elaboration of Hegel's philosophy
of history but, unlike other 'universal histories' of an intended or
unintentional idealiststripe (i.e. projecting back into history what
appears self-evident today), the teleological and rational- izing aspects
with Rosenstock are more in the nature of unacknowledged residues, since
his professed aim is to analyse the cumulative effects of unique historical
combinations; the concrete real in other words includes the rational rather
than the other way around. In the final part, we will argue that if we
assign capital its proper place as a transnational force, we need to divide
Rosenstock's national/universal revolutions into those which paved the way
for the rise of commerce and capital and to some extent coincided with it,
and those which faced an already existing universalism of capital centring
on the English-speaking coun- tries. If amended in this way, Rosenstock's
theory remains important as an explanation of national/transnational
revolutions in an apparently unified, 'closed' capitalist world.

 ...
https://www.academia.edu/12976734/A_theory_of_transnational_revolution_universal_history_according_to_Eugen_Rosenstock-Huessy_and_its_implications

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